A grieving Cheltenham mum is among the first UK parents to issue litigation proceedings against TikTok in the US.

Ellen Roome's son Julian 'Jools' Sweeney died in 2022, aged just 14. An inquest found he probably didn't intend to take his own life.

The Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC), a legal resource for parents of children and teenage victims harmed by social media addiction and social media-fuelled harms, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against TikTok Inc and its parent company ByteDance Inc on behalf of four UK families whose children died from self-strangulation while participating in the TikTok Blackout Challenge.

The lawsuit, which was filed in Superior Court of the State of Delaware yesterday (February 6), claims Isaac Kenevan (13), Archie Battersbee (12), Julian 'Jools' Sweeney (14), and Maia Walsh (13) each died from injuries suffered while attempting the Blackout Challenge in 2022.

The other three children lived in Essex and three died within 45 days of one another. None of the four children knew each other.

Matthew P Bergman, founding attorney of the SMVLC, said: "It's no coincidence that three of the four children who died from self-suffocation after being exposed to the dangerous and deadly TikTok Blackout Challenge lived in the same city (sic) and that all fit a similar demographic.

"TikTok's algorithm purposely targeted these children with dangerous content to increase their engagement time on the platform and drive revenue. It was a clear and deliberate business decision by TikTok that cost these four children their lives."

The complaint accuses TikTok of being a dangerous and addictive product which markets itself as fun and safe for children, while lulling parents into a false sense of security.

The complaint says the reality is that TikTok pushes dangerous prank and challenge videos to children based on their age and location in order to increase engagement time on the platform to generate higher revenues.

A petition started by Ellen Roome to give parents a right to access their children's social media accounts was debated in Parliament last month, after gaining more than 100,000 signatures.

Following Jools' death, Ellen was refused access to his social media without a court order.